I have 100 shares of the stock and have gotten the OBC many times. I can't remember exactly how many, but it is around 6 or 7 times. It varies on the length of the cruise. I have been denied the credit when I had the balcony discount. Usually the credit was received when I booked inside cabins.
Hi there @rtread. Congrats on booking your cruise!
This article from the main blog site covers the main differences between MyTime Dining and Traditional Dining. I've only done traditional so far, and that was late seating. My wife and I really liked it, as we got to know our table-mates well and the wait staff were fantastic. It also left us free to see the earlier showtime for things like the headliner acts and other nightly shows in the main theater.
If you just want to have a table for two (or four / six depending on family size), either kind of dining will be fine, and MyTime Dining might be better as they put some more focus on smaller tables. On the other hand, if you prefer to be seated at a larger table like a 10-top or 12-top and have a big group of people to dine with each night, traditional dining is probably going to be your better bet. You can request a larger table with MyTime Dining, but there's no guarantee you'll get the same people sitting there each time unless you happen to meet some people on board and decide to start dining together each night. That does happen, by the way -- a few here have talked about doing exactly that after the first day or two on board.
I will say that I think the experience of MyTime Dining is going to vary depending on which ship you're on. Purely based on comments I've seen here in other threads, it seems that with Oasis and Quantum class ships, the sheer number of passengers on board can make it a bit of a madhouse at popular times (think 6 or 6:30 PM). Once you're down to a Freedom-class ship or smaller, it seems to be a better experience.
On a side note -- don't feel you have to eat in the Windjammer every morning for breakfast, or every sea day for lunch. The main dining room is open then, and it's another great opportunity to meet your fellow passengers. I loved going to the MDR each morning and asking for a shared table, and seeing who I'd be randomly seated with. Met lots of friendly and interesting people from all over and got to have new and different conversations each day.
